Indeed, among the ancients, each canton, each city, being isolated
from all others by the difference of its language, the consequence was
favorable to ignorance and anarchy. There was no communication of ideas,
no participation of discoveries, no harmony of interests or of wills, no
unity of action or design; besides, the only means of transmitting and
of propagating ideas being that of speech, fugitive and limited,
and that of writing, tedious of execution, expensive and scarce, the
consequence was a hindrance of present instruction, loss of experience
from one generation to another, instability, retrogression of knowledge,
and a perpetuity of confusion and childhood.

But in the modern world, especially in Europe, great nations having
allied themselves in language, and established vast communities of
opinions, the minds of men are assimilated, and their affections
extended; there is a sympathy of opinion and a unity of action; then
that gift of heavenly Genius, the holy art of printing, having furnished
the means of communicating in an instant the same idea to millions of
men, and of fixing it in a durable manner, beyond the power of tyrants
to arrest or annihilate, there arose a mass of progressive instruction,
an expanding atmosphere of science, which assures to future ages a solid
amelioration. This amelioration is a necessary effect of the laws of
nature; for, by the law of sensibility, man as invincibly tends to
render himself happy as the flame to mount, the stone to descend, or the
water to find its level. His obstacle is his ignorance, which misleads
him in the means, and deceives him in causes and effects. He will
enlighten himself by experience; he will become right by dint of errors;
he will grow wise and good because it is his interest so to be.
Ideas being communicated through the nation, whole classes will gain
instruction; science will become a vulgar possession, and all men will